Alasdair Masters is in a rut. He just hit forty, has been nearly celibate for the past year, and his life has turned into a daily sequence of lonely patterns that revolve around avoiding human contact.

His tidy life is turned on its head when a hot young blonde at the gym that’s been pseudo-stalking him decides to rock his world. A very young blonde. Way, way too young for him. The problem is, he can’t seem to tell her no, and she just keeps coming back for more.

It doesn’t help that he’s ninety percent sure she’s a criminal, and still, he can’t seem to turn her down.  What is a dull introvert to do when a chaotic cyclone that oozes sexuality comes twisting into his life?

At first, he thinks she’ll give him a heart attack, but after his twenty-year marriage ended a year ago, he’s been a little lost, and when she comes crashing into his life, he realizes that he’s never felt more alive.

Is a walk on the wild side just what he needs to get his on track or a disaster in the making? Is it possible for someone that much younger to be just what he needs, or is she a fortune hunter, as everyone keeps telling him? Is it his hormones telling him that the mysterious younger woman is the one, or could it be more?

Chapter Three

She acted very impressed that I’d designed the place.  She had a lot of questions, curious about every inch of the property and how it pertained to me.

It seemed to me that she was always trying to connect pieces of a puzzle.

One thing I noticed right away was that I never had to dumb my explanations down for her, which was something that stood out to me, because the dumbing down was such a common occurrence for me, that I wouldn’t have taken a note of it, if I’d been doing the opposite.  She understood my references, big and small picture.  It was astounding, the more I thought about it, because she was just so young.

“Why aren’t you in school?” I asked her.

Her eyes twinkled at me.  It was too adorable and highly dangerous.  “What, you don’t think I’m reaching my full potential?”

I tried to backtrack.  I had a tendency to put my foot in my mouth.  Socially awkward was really a kind way to describe me.  “I-I didn’t say that, I’m just…”

She took pity on me, waving it off with a laugh, and we went on with the tour.

I had several guest rooms, but I showed her to the biggest one, with the nicest bathroom.

“You can use this one while I make us that kale drink.”

She shook her head.

I blinked at her.

“I’ll use the shower connected to your bedroom.”

“This one is just as nice.  I made sure at least one of the guest suites was built like a master.”

“Which one do you use?”

“The master.”

“I’ll use that one.  No need to dirty this one up just for me.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“I think I can remember the way.  I’ll be down in a sec.”

I watched her walk away, having to restrain myself from following her.

What would she do if I got in the shower with her?

Would she let me fuck her?

I got the distinct feeling that she would, but somehow I made myself walk away.

I had half the ingredients out of the fridge for my shake when I remembered her bag.

I nearly ran as I grabbed it and brought it up to her.  The shower was running, I could hear it from the bedroom, and like a pervert, I just opened the door.

The shower was too steamy to make out her figure, thank God, but my eye was caught by a tiny scrap of neon yellow cloth as I set her duffle on the counter.

I picked it up gingerly with two fingers.  If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the tiniest thong I’d ever seen in my life, made up of just a few stretchy strings and an itty-bitty piece of mesh.

I dropped it like it was on fire and backed out of the room, keeping my eyes on the floor.

I shut the door very quietly behind me.

I was nearly back to the kitchen when I veered off into the half bath that connected to the living room.

Her borrowed towel was still on my shoulder, and I buried my face in it.

I licked my palm, yanked my shorts down, and started jerking hard on my cock.

I needed to get a handle on this.

I didn’t even think about her body.  That was overkill.  My mind stayed firmly on that tiny yellow scrap of cloth as I groaned and shot my load into the bathroom sink.

I washed up.

I was still panting as I opened the door.

Iris stood there, dressed in another pair of her tiny Lycra shorts, these ones a pale peach color that emphasized her tan, and a white sports bra (the front zipper halfway down).

Of course she was smiling.

She touched the twice-used towel on my shoulder.  “Maybe I want to keep this thing.  Does it smell like you now?”

I shook my head, then moved past her, heading resolutely to familiar ground.

She sat on the counter while I worked, right smack in the middle of everything, so I had to constantly move by her.  She was perched back on her hands, her thighs spread just wide enough to make my brain stop functioning completely.

“So what do you do for a living to afford this place?”

“I write books.  Mostly crime dramas.”

“Wait, what’s your last name?”

I sighed.  She’d likely heard of me.  I had a fairly popular series that had gotten a lot of attention, and some big screen love, over the last decade.  “Masters.”

“Alasdair Masters.  I’ve heard of you.  How did I never hear that you were smoking hot, Alasdair?”

I gave her a rueful smile.  “You’re buttering me up.  Why?”

She winked at me.  “Not at all.  I call ‘em like I see ‘em.  So do you use your real name as your pen name, or are you giving me a fake name?”

“That is actually my name.  Not smart, I know, but I got into the business before I knew better.  I graduated college when I was eighteen, and started writing books a few years before that, and I was too egotistical as a kid to use a fake name.”

“A prodigy.”

“Not quite.  Just a few years ahead.  And my father worked in the business, so I had some very helpful connections.”

“And you’re humble, to boot.  Tell me what happened between you and your ex-wife.  How did it all go south after twenty years?”

“You really want me to talk about this?  I was in such a good mood.”

“Were you?  What put you in such a good mood?”  I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the smile in her voice.  “Does that good mood have something to do with all the grunting and slapping noises I heard you making in the bathroom earlier?”

I couldn’t touch that one, couldn’t respond to it.  I ignored it (though I could feel the hot blush on my cheeks) like she’d never said it.

It was too much for me, otherwise.

“Well, to be honest, I suppose there were always troubles.  I just didn’t understand them or even see them.  I tried to be a good husband, as I understood it, tried to make her happy.  One day I came home to find her on her knees, giving some man I’d never seen before a blow job, in my entryway.  Everything went real south after that.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.  It didn’t help that she hadn’t given me a bj for, hell, I don’t know, years.  It was a hard thing to see.  I could have used a blow job, or fuck, a smile, and there she was, deep throating some stranger.”

“That’s terrible.  She sounds just awful.”

“Well, I guess it was love, because I hear she’s marrying the guy, who is way younger than her, by the way.  Apparently, I was just the husband that was holding her back.  Of course, she took every penny she could in the divorce, so at least she doesn’t mind my money.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Never even thought of a pre-nup.  I was twenty and assumed I was getting married forever.”

“How old was she when you got married?”

“Twenty-three.  Which was the last time I dated someone your age.  But enough about me, let’s talk about you.  Are you in college?”  I’d already surmised that she wasn’t, but I was trying my best to be polite.

“Nope.”

“Where do you work?”

“Here and there.  I was working as a cigarette girl at a casino, but it was a temporary gig.  Now I’m in between.  I got a job offer at Hooters that I’m considering.”

I shot a glance at her chest.  “They’d eat you up, wouldn’t they?”

She giggled.  “What about you, Dair?  Would you eat me up?”

I nearly cut my fingers off.

I took a moment to compose myself as I shoved the kale, carrots, white tea, cucumber, strawberries, ginger, and spinach into my Vitamix, filling it to the top.  I blended it until it was smooth liquid.

I poured two glasses, sliding one to her.  I took my own to the table in the breakfast nook.

She joined me, taking a long drink.  “Not bad.  Not good, but it obviously works.  Keeps you fit enough, eh?”

I drank mine in a few big chugs.

She finished hers slowly.  I knew she was teasing me when she licked the rim of her empty cup.

The girl got a kick out of driving me wild.

She rolled the empty glass between her exposed cleavage, giving me very solid eye contact.  “What now?”

I took a few deep, steadying breaths.  “I can take you wherever you want.  Just say the word.”

She beamed.  “Let’s watch some TV.”

I was incapable of telling her no, and she insisted on the theatre room, but she wanted to watch cable.  Bad cable.

She sat on the bench seat, and I sat a safe two feet away from her.  She picked something god-awful to watch, some reality show about Gypsies living in the states.

It didn’t matter.  I couldn’t have paid attention to that screen if my life had depended on it just then.

She kept inching closer to me.

She laughed at something on the show, then said, “Can you turn the lights up?  How bright can you make it in here?”

I showed her.

“Can we watch this in your bedroom?” she asked, and I could feel her looking at me.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“How about a room with some natural light?  And what do you have to snack on?”

I showed her to the living room, which did have a TV hidden behind a painting, and an abundance of natural light.

I turned her awful show back on.  “What kind of snack do you want?”

“I’ll go look and see what you have.  Do you mind if I just make myself at home?”

I shook my head, but I did mind.

I was ready to tear my hair out; I wanted so badly to touch her.

She came back with a strawberry Popsicle.  She’d chopped it in half, so it was just one long stick that bobbed in and out of her mouth.

I was about to lose my shit, and the grin on her face told me she knew it.

“Want me to grab you one?  Or you want to share?”

I shook my head, looking back at the TV, pretending to watch it.

She laughed at something on the show, some woman with orange skin and black curly hair saying, “More.  It can’t be sparkly enough.”

She moved in front of me, her barely covered ass nearly in my face.

I clenched my fists.

She sat beside me, our hips touching.  She patted my knee and went to town on the Popsicle like she was giving me the show of my life.

“Jesus,” I muttered as it disappeared completely into her mouth.

I was so outclassed here.

She sent me a sideways smile that made my heart beat into my throat.

She pulled it completely out, smacking her red lips.  “You said your ex-wife hadn’t sucked you off for years before you caught her with that other guy.  So how many years has it been since you’ve gotten a blow job?”

I ran my fingers through my hair, cursing.  “I don’t know.  Fuck.  Five years?  Maybe more.”

She stood up, moving in front of me again.  Very slowly, like she was testing the waters, she sat on my lap.

She held her Popsicle to my lips, and what could I do?  I licked it, then started sucking it as she pushed it in and out of my mouth, her head laid back on my shoulder, my hard-on digging like a poker into her ass.

“Show me how you like it, baby,” she whispered.

I sucked hard on it, the noise loud, even compared to the TV.

“Jesus, do you think I’m a vacuum?” she asked, sounding perturbed.

I stopped abruptly, and she dissolved into laugher, standing up.  She disappeared, then came back, sans popsicle.

“So, tell me, am I too young even to kiss?” she asked, standing directly in front of me, this time facing me.

I couldn’t answer her.  My opinion was in direct opposition with my need.

R.K. Lilley lives in Colorado with her husband and their two beautiful sons. She’s had a lot of interesting jobs, from being a first class flight attendant, to being a stablehand, but swears she never knew what hard work was until she had children. She’s been addicted to both reading and writing fiction since she can remember. She loves to travel, read, hike, paint, game, watch anime, and make the most of every single day. She is the author of the erotic romance novels In Flight, Mile High, Grounded, and the novella, Lana.

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